Repairing a FileVault-protected Home folder

This FAQ applies to Mac® OS X® 10.3 or later. It addresses repairing FileVault®-protected Home folders that were encrypted with FileVault under Mac OS X 10.3-10.6, aka Legacy FileVault.

This FAQ specifically applies in the following situations:

You are running Mac OS X 10.3-10.6 and have encrypted one or more Home folders with FileVault.

You are running OS X 10.7 or later and upgraded without first disabling FileVault protection on Home folders encrypted with FileVault under Mac OS X 10.6 or earlier.

This FAQ does not apply to FileVault 2, i.e. FileVault disk encryption as implemented in OS X 10.7 and later. FileVault 2 encrypts the entire startup disk, not individual Home folders. If you upgraded to OS X 10.7 or later without first disabling FileVault encryption on Home folders encrypted under Mac OS X 10.3-10.6, those Home folders remain encypted with the earlier version of FileVault and you cannot enabled FileVault 2. Note that Apple® documentation for OS X 10.7 and later — such as Help information — refers to FileVault 2 as FileVault and refers to FileVault in Mac OS X 10.6 and earlier as Legacy FileVault.

FileVault-protected Home folders are encrypted disk images. Under Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4, the disk image is in sparse image format. Under Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6, the disk image is in sparse bundle format.

File system directory corruption can occur in any of these disk image formats. This is usually as the result of an improper shutdown, such as a power outage or using the power button to shut down the computer after a freeze or kernel panic. The following problems with a FileVault-protected account usually indicate that its disk image may be corrupted:

Inability to log in.

After logging in, the account appears to have been reset to a new account: the desktop and Dock are set to default values and all personal data is missing.

Disk Utility cannot repair the sparse bundle

If you have installed a Leopard-compatible version of a third-party disk utility, such as Alsoft® DiskWarrior® or Micromat® TechTool® Pro, you may still be able to repair the sparse bundle. This hinges on whether or not the sparse bundle can be mounted. To attempt to mount the affected sparse bundle:

Warning:

Only use Leopard-compatible versions of disk utilities on disks used with Leopard.

1.

Double-click the affected sparse bundle.

2.

Type the Master Password when prompted.

3.

Determine if the sparse bundle mounts:

If the sparse bundle:

Then:

Mounts

Attempt to repair the mounted disk image using the third-party disk utility.

If the third-party disk utility cannot repair the mounted sparse, then data in the affected user's Home folder is unrecoverable and must be restored to a new account from a recent backup, if available.

Does not mount

The sparse bundle cannot be repaired: data in the affected user's Home folder is unrecoverable and must be restored to a new account from a recent backup, if available.

Did you find this FAQ helpful? You will find a wealth of additional advice for preventing or resolving Mac OS X problems in Dr. Smoke's book, Troubleshooting Mac® OS X.